Last month, it was officially announced that Endeavor had closed the merger between the UFC and WWE to create a new company, TKO Group Holdings, which went public.
The week after the merger was complete, it was announced that TKO had inked a deal to leave FOX for a return to the USA Network with SmackDown in October 2024 after signing a five-year agreement between WWE and NBCUniversal.
Endeavor and TKO CEO Ari Emanuel was present at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference, where he spoke about the deal, touting that they got a 40 percent increase in SmackDown’s TV rights. He also noted that their deal with NBCU to air WWE PLE and its library on Peacock is up in 2026.
“So, you cannot undervalue the WWE and UFC for the following reasons: One, we do not have a season. One of the biggest issues that will happen with s-mods and networks is churn. We’re 52 weeks a year, right? And we’re flexible. You want us Thursday night? You want us Tuesday night? I don’t have any of those scheduling issues and that churn issue because we’re the full year. It’s so much different than any other sport because then people churn out. That’s one of the issues with sports. Not in a bad way… and then the package is over and then you leave. We do not have that. Our fans are loyal, they stick around and they move.”
Through September 2024, NXT and Raw will stay on the USA Network, but the rights for both shows are still up.
“I would say to you there’s plenty of interest in Raw right now. I know people are like, ‘NBC is out of the mix,’ and that’s why it went down. I think there’s three things that happened. One the reasons the stock is down is they thought Raw was the best package. I saw a 40 percent increase which was in line with expectations… Two, the P.F.L. situation and three, probably Vince (McMahon) in our deal, wanted to be able to put, at any point in time, his stock. He’s 78 years old. He’s been working at this for decades and decades so, I think those three back-to-back issues…”
As previously reported, because SmackDown is returning to USA, the network isn’t expected to renew the rights to Raw and NXT.
H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription
